Channeling the spirit of a thousand great scientists before me, I
went forth to charm. I started LFG in Sebilis, where I charmed a
bok shaman and killed a jin wizard (1 recharm necessary) and then
kept him charmed for a bit to experiment. The bok hit for 144;
I believe that makes him L47. I am L55 with 206 charisma in all
these experiments (sadly 5 hours of playing time is not nearly
enough to level up on these ridiculous kunark levels).
[Sun May 01 01:27:03 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 54 seconds (Froglok bok shaman)
[Sun May 01 01:28:02 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 01:28:25 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 147 seconds (Froglok bok shaman)
[Sun May 01 01:30:57 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 01:31:20 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 32 seconds (Froglok bok shaman)
[Sun May 01 01:31:57 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 01:32:11 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 198 seconds (Froglok bok shaman)
[Sun May 01 01:35:34 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 01:35:53 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 294 seconds (Froglok bok shaman)
[Sun May 01 01:40:52 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 02:42:48 2011] You begin casting Allure.
I went to Chardok and did the tunnel. My golem was very weak (hit for
135, so I guess L43-44 or so). We had a mage this time so all of
these were with malo.
Charm duration: 247 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 02:47:00 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 02:47:16 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 364 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 02:53:25 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 02:53:54 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 255 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 02:58:14 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 02:58:29 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 341 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:04:15 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:04:46 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 54 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:05:45 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:05:59 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 300 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:11:04 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:11:20 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 45 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:12:10 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:12:28 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 458 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:20:11 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:20:28 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 152 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:23:05 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:23:26 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 257 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:27:48 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:28:04 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 184 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:31:13 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 03:31:28 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 623 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 03:41:56 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 04:02:29 2011] You begin casting Allure.
We had a little confusion and my faithful golem was killed. So I
played with a myrmidon. I think he was L48.
Charm duration: 289 seconds (A sarnak myrmidon)
[Sun May 01 04:07:23 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 04:07:47 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 278 seconds (A sarnak myrmidon)
[Sun May 01 04:12:30 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 04:40:46 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 13 seconds (A sarnak myrmidon)
[Sun May 01 04:41:04 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 04:41:20 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 284 seconds (A sarnak myrmidon)
[Sun May 01 04:46:09 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 04:46:33 2011] You begin casting Allure.
We almost wiped in a nasty train but our wizard evac'ed us just
in time (except for poor Goragu, who was flattened). After we
recovered the corpse of our SK, I charmed a L51 myrmidon (he
summoned me when it broke) for 2 minutes (no malo). Its
interesting to note that the Janissary he was fighting was only
half dead when charm broke.
Charm duration: 123 seconds (A sarnak myrmidon)
[Sun May 01 04:48:41 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:13:49 2011] You begin casting Allure.
I ended up charm duoing the zone in/out with a mage which after
we got the hang of it I have to admit was easy mode. So all of
these durations were with malo. I had some bad luck with the
golem at the end but most of the time I ended up breaking charm
with invisibility. Nalkin can take heart: the mage's earth pet
would out-taunt and out-damage mine (it was hasted with daggers,
and I didn't feel confident enough to haste my charmed pets
without any healer at all).
Charm duration: 143 seconds (A sarnak janissary)
[Sun May 01 05:16:17 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:26:18 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 297 seconds (A sarnak templar)
[Sun May 01 05:31:20 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:31:20 2011] You vanish.
[Sun May 01 05:34:06 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 301 seconds (A sarnak aruspex)
[Sun May 01 05:39:12 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:39:12 2011] You vanish.
[Sun May 01 05:41:27 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 431 seconds (A sarnak janissary)
[Sun May 01 05:48:43 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:48:43 2011] You vanish.
[Sun May 01 05:51:30 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 58 seconds (a sarnak templar)
[Sun May 01 05:52:33 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:53:17 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 60 seconds (A sarnak templar)
[Sun May 01 05:54:22 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 05:54:22 2011] You vanish.
[Sun May 01 06:01:19 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 506 seconds (a sarnak janissary)
[Sun May 01 06:09:50 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 06:09:50 2011] You vanish.
[Sun May 01 06:11:25 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 16 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 06:11:46 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 06:11:57 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 39 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 06:12:41 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
[Sun May 01 06:13:01 2011] You begin casting Allure.
Charm duration: 41 seconds (A chardoki golem)
[Sun May 01 06:13:47 2011] Your Allure spell has worn off.
Unfortunately I didn't really test what I wanted to test (charm sans
malo) that well since for some crazy reason I was always grouping with
magicians.
Once I looked at the data it became obvious what's happening: now
charm breaks much more frequently in the first minute. I had 2/6
(33%) charms break early without malo, 7/26 (30%) charms break
early with malo. People notice this and get irritated,
especially when they get 3-4 instant breaks in a row, because it
sticks in their memory - its why we used to dance to make it
rain. This happens even with malo (see my little experience with
the chardoki golem at the end). It's also what makes charming
much more dangerous now, because you never know when you might
have to blow 1000 mana on 3 recharms in a minute. What's
interesting is there is not a single charm break at 60-120
seconds. That second minute is just ironclad control.
Verdict: Charm is way better currently than I thought it was, but
I find it hard to believe that it broke 1/3 of the time in the
first minute on classic for an enchanter with 200+ charisma,
tash, and malo. I'd be very curious to see how you changed the
code to create this effect, and whether that was your intent or
not.
The 'no-pet-dw' fix is already a huge nerf towards charm soloing,
and some people may be confusing this with a charm nerf. It takes
a solid 4 minutes for a L45+ sarnak to kill one of his brothers
in arms now without haste. So if charm soloing at this level was
practical on live (and it was, at least according to Xornn) then
charm would have to last 4-5 minutes fairly consistently; that
happened on only 1 out of 6 charms.
If I was wishing, I would ask for about 25% increased duration
and breaks in the first minute 1/5 times rather than 1/3 times.
But overall though the situation is not nearly as bad as I
thought it was. The people that are saying charm (that would be
me, sigh) is useless now are just wrong.
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